Grand Jury Indicts Happy State Bank Robbery Suspect Who Used Pipe Bomb
Wednesday afternoon (March 21), a federal grand jury in Lubbock indicted a Central American man for bank robbery.
Forty-three-year-old Eddie Esturado Galindo-Mendez, who is a Guatemalan citizen, was charged with one count of bank robbery for the November 2017 robbery of Happy State Bank.
Court records say Mendez went into the Happy State Bank location on 19th Street with a suspected pipe bomb and intimidated the clerk. Mendez stole $2,553 and left the store on a bike.
Mendez also planted an IED on Texas Tech campus, though a bomb squad determined it was a dud. According to the U.S. Attorney's office:
According to the affidavit filed with the criminal complaint and the indictment, on November 20, 2017, law enforcement responded to a call for two suspected Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). One IED was located on the campus of Texas Tech University and one was used in the robbery at Happy State Bank, located in Lubbock, Texas. The IEDs were described as pipe bombs. Law enforcement reviewed surveillance video captured from Texas Tech University and Happy State Bank’s interior video systems. The videos show that around 1:27 p.m. the suspected IED was placed on a student’s truck at Texas Tech University and at around 3:00 p.m. an individual robbed the Happy State Bank utilizing a note and a suspected IED.
Galindo-Mendez faces up to 20 years in prison and is being held on a $250,000 bond.
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Original Report on the Happy State Bank Robbery